Let me use the damn blog for something

Grit rarely steps out her little home educating bubble.

Like, North Korea points sixteen nuclear missiles at South Korea, but over here at grit's day, it's all tiddlypompomlook! Squirrel drew a cute wallaby!

This is because, on world matters about which she has little direct knowledge or practical experience, Grit normally follows that smart advice - better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open one's mouth and remove all doubt.

I like to think there is great benefit to you all in this dignified silence on so many controversies - whether it be Aboriginal politics, the contribution to economic philosophy by David Hume, or the manufacturing process of Rice Krispies. And I like to think, by this restrained and measured approach, that I do not automatically become a fully paid up member of the blogranting brigade. (Don't disillusion me, please.)

But all bubbles burst every so often. Sometimes because Tiger pops them and runs off, but she gets away with it, because she is cute. Sometimes the bubble thins as the soapy molecules are pulled down by gravity, and we are thinking science.

But sometimes they pop because Grit takes an enormous swinging punch at something to stabilise herself in her enormously volatile emotional life, aka just make herself feel better.

The latter applies today, obviously. So I'm blogging an opinion which is not much informed by direct knowledge or practical experience, but is SHOUTINGOUTMYPISSEDOFFMOUTH. Anyway, better for the neighbourhood for me to shout at the blog than shout at the wall. And you might wish to click away now.

This particular temper tantrum is prompted by my bete noire Balls, and his response to the terrible case of The Edlington Boys.

There he was on Newsnight, two-tonguing his way through an interview designed to rip something from him. Like integrity.

All I can hear is a squirming man protecting the system. A system that has become paper-heavy, bureaucratic, phone-based in place of face-to-face, destructive and ineffective. A system that justifies itself through the paperwork trails it creates, and which it must hide when asked to show what it really does, because the paper trail will show it does nothing but generate paper trails.

This is a system where people interpret their jobs through the roles ascribed to them by middle managers. Where managers are themselves policed by paper targets. Building a system that has become incapable of acting - even though the people with in it, like Grit's sister in law, might so desperately want to effect good and bring about better change in struggling lives.

But to Balls, protecting his bureaucratic pile matters more than any of the people it was designed to serve.

So what is the party response to all of this mess? First, call on the NSPCC. Second, call on Lord Laming. And third, the solution to this database rich world, is to extend it.

Right. I feel better now. For more on Balls, you'll need to go somewhere else.

And here is a cute picture that Squirrel drew.